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Wednesday, 4 April 2012

My Path to Games Development Part 1

This is the first in a series of posts about how I got into studying Games Development.

Ever since I can remember I have pretty much always had a game controller in my hand. The first consoles I can remember playing were the Sega Master System and the Sega Mega Drive. I absolutely loved the Sega Mega Drive and played Sonic 3, Ristar and Lion King non-stop on it. I still drag the console down from the attic from time to time to play it and it never gets old. I also have Ristar and Alex Kidd on the Wii so I love the wave of nostalgia it brings and hows it's so convenient to play it on a modern console. Although I have to say Alex Kidd seems so much harder now as an adult than it ever was as a child!

A few years later I still loved gaming and all the new consoles and games that had come out. They were so impressive for their time. I started to become interested in Game design and spent hours designing and drawing weapons, characters, stories and even new Pokemon! The first real experience I had of designing something for an actual game was using the Level Editor in Time Splitters 2. I spent a lot of my time creating my own levels and recreating favourite levels from other games within that editor, then playing the finished creations with my brother. I also learned how to use logic in that editor as I set up little story missions in which you had objectives such as pick up a certain object, destroy an objective and kill an enemy boss to finish the level.

After getting my first taste of level design I was hooked. At that time my brother was experimenting with the Unreal Ed level editor for the Unreal Tournament games. Through his guidance and my own learning and experimentation I learned how to create levels in the editor. I'll always remember the city level I made with skyscrapers in which you could get a lift to the top floor so you could use a sniper rifle on enemies below. At that point in my life I definitely knew that I wanted to be a part of the Game Industry.

Thanks for reading and if you have any questions or comments feel free to comment below.